Grit Lab Report

Hi Kyulee,

Welcome to your personalized Grit Lab Report!

We will go week by week, reviewing everything you have told us through Poll Everywhere.

We hope this will help you reflect on what you have learned and experienced during Grit Lab.

Important note!

Sometimes, you may not have been able to respond to all polls.

If the data for one of the polls is missing, the automatic report will display NA, or ““.

Okay, let’s get started!

The first half of Grit Lab delves deep intp the passion facet of Grit.

We like to call it Choose Easy, because we think gritty people pursue what they enjoy.

Putting it graphically, gritty people tend to pursue the intersection of these four circles.

The first time we met, you told us where you were on the grit rubric.

Regarding passion you picked Stage 3: I’m actively figuring out what my interests are by trying one or more of them out in some way .

Regarding perseverance you picked .

As you know, grit grows, so don’t worry if you are not yet where you’d like to be in your grit journey.

Hopefully, this class will help you become grittier each day.

In week 2, we looked at your interests.

Interest is an emotion, and it is the opposite of boredom.

Your interests are the activities or subjects that spontaneously grab your attention.

Trying things out and seeing how you feel is the best way to refine your interests.

In week 3, we studied values, your beliefs about what is important.

You said your top three values were benevolence, self-direction, and achievement.

You wrote a “This I Believe” essay, and here’s where you located it on Schwartz’s value taxonomy.

When we talked about strengths in week 4, you said your personality strength was agreeableness.

You said your top three talents were analytic, verbal, and musical.

We then talked about goal hierarchies.

You said you had a pretty good idea about your top-level goal.

We discussed self-concordance, or how much a goal aligns to your deeply held values and beliefs.

A goal you said you will be pursuing for the next six months is to do well in school and be healthy .

Here is how self-concordant that goal was:

Don’t worry if your self-concordance for that particular goal is low.

It might mean that you need to reframe that goal in a way that makes it more relevant to your deep self, or change it!

Remember that self-concordance is goal specific, so other goals might be more self-concordant.

We then transitioned to the second part of Grit Lab:

Work Smart

In week 6, we looked at goal setting and planning.

You WOOPed!

For your Wish, what you wanted to accomplish, you said Go to gym .

For your Outcome, what would happen if your wish came true, you said Feel healthy .

For you Obstacle, what it is within you that stands in your way, you said Too tired .

For your Plan, you created this when-then plan to achieve your goal: When I feel tired and unmotivated, I will listen to energetic music and walk to gym. .

Whether you changed your WOOP or stuck to that one, here’s where it landed between being a total fail, and going exactly according to plan.

And here’s how much you learned

These goals are hard, and despite our best efforts, our plans can fail.

The important thing is that you learn something along the way!

In week 7, we talked about deliberate practice.

You shared you’ve done daily practice in Flute .

We learned that deliberate practice requires a challenging, hyperspecific goal, maximum concentration, instant feedback, and is often done alone.

In week 8, we discussed feedback.

Even though feedback can be hard to take, it is often the key to improve. So if you want to improve, seek it actively!

You said you felt Attacked when receiving critical feedback, and Attacked when receiving positive feedback.

We then turned to learning about stress.

In week 9, you reported feeling a lot of stress in your life right now, the primary source of it being future and also relationship .

We also talked about adversity and failure.

Although related, adversity and failure are different:

Adversity happens to us, whereas failure is something for which we are generally more responsible.

However, how we interpret stress and failure matters…

Interestingly, research has found that people who believe that stress can facilitate learning and growth experience enhanced performance, well-being, and health.

And failure—not achieving a particular goal—can be interpreted as “I’m learning!” and lead you to look for the lesson in that experience.

We closed the Work Smart section of the class by talking about habits.

Throughout the semester, you practice habit building using your Build-A-Habit Guide book.

You describe the habit you chose as Health .

Whether you were successful in habit building or not, this is how much you learned.

Finally, what good is grit if we do not dream for others?

So, we transitioned to Paying it Forward.

In week 10, we looked at mentors: role models that take an active role in your growth.

Hopefully, your mentor was authoritative, being both supportive and demanding.

Here’s how you described them:

You also wrote a gratitude letter to Other .

In one word, you said it made you feel Warm .

One way of paying it forward is having a prosocial, beyond-the-self purpose. Here’s how you responded to items assessing that.

… and so quickly we arrived at the end of the semester.

Here’s how your mood varied over these weeks.

Do you notice any patterns? Is there anything that correlates with your mood?

Here you can scroll through all the quotes you wrote to summarize each class.

Success is a journey
I need to explore more and develop a passion.
It's important to know my talents.
Any occupation can be job, career, or a calling
Goals help bridge the intention-action gap.
Deliberate practice- goals, focus, feedback, repetition
Feedforward is more effective than feedback.
I have to learn from failure and manage stress and adversities to be successful.
Change the situation to build healthy habits
People have different reciprocate styles and I want to give more.

In the final class, we looked back to everything we’ve learned together and to how our passion and perseverance evolved during this class.

Here are the comments from your Grit Lab Teammates:

Allison Xiao
Kyulee is kind, enthusiastic, but above all, authentic. Speaking to her, you can’t help but to see her genuine passion for her career and life aspirations. Beyond that, she’s extremely tenacious. She was very open about her struggles here at Penn, yet she pulled through, never once giving up. She is an invaluable member of any team she is a part of, and demonstrates true grit in the face of adversity. I really love how you pushed yourself out of your comfort zone for your Discovery Project! Jumping headfirst into the creative space can be very daunting, but I think you made massive strides. I also thought it was so cool that you didn’t just stick to singing, but you kept expanding and pursuing that end goal of exploring music. Keep up the great work, and I hope to listen to that song you’re working on!!!
Neel Jain
Kyulee Kim brought a unique sense of genuine care, authenticity, and lightheartedness to our group in Grit Lab 101. Her smile is contagious and her sense of humor makes any difficult topic more light and enjoyable. Kyulee is also very reliable and supportive to her teammates. For my discovery project, I organized a soccer tournament and a project connecting people for meals. Kyulee was there and present at both of my initiatives despite her busy and involved schedule, showing her prioritization of showing up for people that matter to her. Kyulee would also share with us about her personal life, stress outside of Grit Lab, and advice she's learned, showing her excellence in conveying authenticity within a team. Lastly, Kyulee has displayed unparalleled grit in any endeavor she's pursued. Kyulee brought her talents to an A cappella group this semester, and I have no idea how she balances this with her bioengineering studies, research, and other involvements. She is also committed to conducting researching in bioengineering, and I'm eager to see where her intellectual aptitude and care toward others will take her. I loved learning about your passion toward singing in your discovery project! It was inspiring to see you jump out of your comfort zone into something totally unknown like joining an A cappella group. I appreciated your openness to go into all the details of your project including potentially playing a sample of your music - I still want to see it. I learned how beautiful music can be as a vehicle to find your sense of self-expression and voice. You taught me the importance of exploring your creative and expressive sides that would normally go unnoticed. Keep up the great work!
Jayden Khuu
Throughout the semester, Kyulee consistently exemplified a unique form of leadership, marked by positivity, gratitude, and a genuine enthusiasm for learning. Her approach, which was neither overly outspoken nor performative, had a significant impact on her peers. Kyulee's ability to connect course content to aspects of her personal life, including experiences with friends, family, studies, and mentors, served as a source of encouragement for others to adopt a similar attitude. Moreover, her attentive listening skills and genuine care for what others had to say not only made her classmates feel heard but also deepened their investment in the class. Kyulee's influence and inspiration are highly valued, and there is great anticipation for future encounters with her. Kyulee's project stood out as a highlight of the semester. Her decision to explore and integrate different art forms, such as a cappella and songwriting, demonstrated her creative versatility and courage. Joining PennSori was a significant step for her, and her outstanding performance throughout the semester, especially at the PennSori concert, was a testament to her hard work and dedication. The beauty and emotion of her performance at the concert were deeply moving, reflecting the immense effort and perseverance she put into preparing for it, especially during the challenging week leading up to the concert. Kyulee's commitment to balancing her artistic pursuits with academic responsibilities showcased her remarkable grit and dedication. Her exploration into songwriting, while still a work in progress, already exhibited immense potential and pride. Her project not only impressed her peers but also inspired them to reconnect with the performing arts, potentially sparking new journeys in their own creative explorations. Kyulee's discovery project was much more than just an assignment; it was a source of inspiration and a catalyst for artistic rediscovery among her classmates.

We hope you have emerged from Grit Lab a little grittier than you started.

Do you want to see how your grit rubric changed?

Drumroll please…

Don’t worry if the rubric doesn’t yet reflect growth. It is only a coarse measure that cannot replace your own self-reflection.

In any case, grit is not built in a day…

…remember that progress is never smooth…

…so stay passionate and persevering in the lifelong quest of choosing easy, working smart, and paying it forward.

With grit and gratitude,

Angela and the Grit Lab team.